Fuel pickups are in the back of the tank for a reason. You can coast downhill, you can't coast uphill.

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Every cage I've ever owned seems to have the pickup at the front/middle of the tank. Stupid GrandAm I had with the high-output quad-4 used to stall out under max acceleration with anything less than a 1/4 tank of gas. Freaking annoying. Great engine... stupid package.
Second gear, 6500rpm, front wheels starting to break loose, and the engine would go lean and stumble:dog

Yeah! "Fuel pickups are in the back of the tank for a reason." There's more than one engineer out there that needs to be whacked over the head with that line.

"Note to self: no matter what, do NOT, I repeat DO NOT wash off or lose the markings between mated peices.

I don't know for sure how many combinations there are for 8 holes on 5 parts where the x-axis on part A (short bar) has the pontential to be either North or South AND left of or right of the part B (long bar) AND part C (long bar).

I feel exactly the same about cars with the filler on the passenger side.

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You like or dislike the filler on the pax side? I prefer it that way. Keeps me out of the traffic when adding fuel from a jerry can on the side of the road. Although, it's been 30+ years since I've had to do that.

When doing an oil change, don't drain the oil, remove the filter, get distracted by something else, bolt everything back up, fill the bike with new oil and then turn around to see the new, uninstalled oil filter sitting on the ground three feet away.

(Did it a couple of years ago. Still can't believe I did something that stupid.)

You like or dislike the filler on the pax side? I prefer it that way. Keeps me out of the traffic when adding fuel from a jerry can on the side of the road. Although, it's been 30+ years since I've had to do that.

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I hate it because I'm lazy and it seems like extra effort every fill up for no good reason. But you're the first person who's ever provided a reasonable reason for it!! That's a good point I hadn't considered before.

Usually the only reason to fill up on the side of the road is from being too lazy to stop for gas when you see it, then having all the energy you need to walk several miles, borrow a can (soda bottles on the side of the road work great to get enough fuel to go the extra miles, and good funnels, btw...), then hike back to the car...

I hate it because I'm lazy and it seems like extra effort every fill up for no good reason. But you're the first person who's ever provided a reasonable reason for it!! That's a good point I hadn't considered before.

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Some say that putting the filler cap on the passenger side is safer. Two vehicles hitting sideswipping each other on the road could cause damage to the fillers and a potential fire. Putting fillers on the passenger side places them towards the outside of the road, and lessening the probability of damage in some accident scenarios.

Some say that putting the filler cap on the passenger side is safer. Two vehicles hitting sideswipping each other on the road could cause damage to the fillers and a potential fire. Putting fillers on the passenger side places them towards the outside of the road, and lessening the probability of damage in some accident scenarios.

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Yeah, but.... wouldn't it be better to have a fire in the middle of the road instead of say sideswiping a tree and having the gas spill into the brush!?

Usually the only reason to fill up on the side of the road is from being too lazy to stop for gas when you see it, then having all the energy you need to walk several miles, borrow a can (soda bottles on the side of the road work great to get enough fuel to go the extra miles, and good funnels, btw...), then hike back to the car...

Frequently, and without warning.

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Or you miss a turn off due to a bush fire (yes, to stay on the same road you turn right not straight on, (Kamanya this was just after Sishen mine) then instead of doubling back you see that there is another "road" (Postmasburg) to get you back on track, it turns out to be 40 miles of sand and gravel The fun part is that the piece of road you missed out had the filling station on it:eek1 we cruised at about 50 mph to get to Uppington at dark running on fumes lying the pig down to get last drops of fuel at the end, but we got there

I'll have you all know, I was in stitches reading some of these at work.

Unfortunately, I have a few of my own. I work with some very large and powerful lasers, one of which is capable of cutting steel 1.25" thick. We have a new one that we are in the process of getting up and running, and I ran into a problem I feel would be perfect for this thread:

Keep your head clear of the movement system's path. There isn't much warning that it's about to traverse, and there is zero warning about where it will traverse to. 7,800 IPM (Inches Per Minute) is faster than you think. Especially when the next fastest laser in the shop only traverses at 1,968 IPM. 7,800 IPM is enough to put you on the ground hard enough that you slide for a foot or so. But don't worry boss, I'm not saying I told you so in my head or anything.

Another fun-filled metal shop incident involved a very old rod-straightening machine. It uses rollers to squeeze a 20 foot long rod anywhere from .500" diameter to 1" diameter, spinning it and squeezing it to make it straight. When it gets bound up, it's usually because one rod has not left the machine before the next one got fed in. Best way to get it loose was to turn the rods with a 4' pipe wrench until one could be removed by hand, then start the machine back up. It's very important to remove the big pipe wrench from the rod before starting the machine, since chances are I was a dumbass 20 year old kid leaning over the rod to see into the machine to make sure it didn't get stuck again. The pipe wrench hit me in the chest and tossed all 140 pounds of me over the machine and into the floor.

Ahh yes one of my favorites - don't start a new CNC program and walk away. There might be an unpleasant surprise when you get back. Let it run a couple first. When you cause a 5 foot by 10 foot piece of 1/2" plate to be scrapped people get upset about it.

A BMW driver (car, not bike) a few months back had one of those educational moments - when driving through the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma, always remember that the Combine has the right of way.

When installing a new tube in a two -piece forklift wheel, make certain that you have torqued down the nuts that hold the assembly together before adding unregulated air from a chuck...just spinning the nuts on the first few threads ensures a trip to Fastenal...right after your trip across the shop when the halves separate, sending the top one into your chest.

The tube was fine, BTW, since the guy holding the chuck was no longer there to keep adding air past its design limit.

When installing the transmission in your truck, it's possible to put the oil in the transmission through the hole the stickshift goes in. However, if you don't want a big bunch of gear oil on the floor, put the driveshaft in the transmission before filling it. Also, and this is important, don't let your helper pour that oil in while your face is right under the tail of the transmission trying to put the driveshaft in. Gear oil in the eyes is most unpleasant.

When the dash lights on your KLR go out, before removing the fairing, gas tank, seat, battery, and exposing the entire wiring harness to see where it has shorted, check to be sure that you haven't just burned out all three dash bulbs. Especially if you really hammered it over a bump the day you noticed your dash lights were out.

Last but not least, when you install lifting links on your KLR, adjust the headlight BEFORE you ride it to work, and then ride it home from work in the middle of the night. Especially if you are like me, and live about ten miles past the last street light. That bright spot five feet in front of the bike doesn't really help.

When your TBI-equipped chevy truck starts cycling between running good and almost stalling in 20-30 second cycles, and you remove the bed to replace the fuel pump, remember to replace the piece of 3/8" diameter 1.5" long rubber hose that goes from the top of the fuel pump to the rest of the fuel line. Because if you don't, and you put it all back together, the truck will drive you nuts trying to figure out why you STILL only have 5 PSI of fuel pressure.

When you get that nice random misfire telling you that you need new plug wires, and you replace them... don't assume you didn't get a brand new set of BAD plug wires from the parts store.

And one a friend has recently experienced - a mid-1990's chevrolet 4.3 V6 DOES have a distributor on it, no matter what your dingbat "mechanic" buddy told you. And when that distributor cap is cracked, no manner of fuel injector cleaning, plug wire replacement, spark plug replacement, or ignition coil replacement will make the truck run right. And lastly, even though the distributor cab has numbers on it for the plug wires, if your buddy is used to working on Mopar V6's, and he attempts to transfer that knowledge to a GM V6, it's going to run like absolute garbage because Chrysler and GM apparently number their cylinders differently.

Also, straightening that kind of mess out, in ten minutes, in the dark after work will elevate one to god-like status in the eyes of some, and they will expect you to know how to fix anything. So sometimes it's better to act dumb.

Fuel tanks caps do not have dipsticks on them
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Some times hydraulic tanks do
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We were trying to get to a pallet out of the back of one of our buildings (had to completely empty a row to get to the back) and there wasn&#8217;t enough room on the dock for all the pallets so we had them strung out in the parking lot. The forklift was out of fuel so I sent Mr M to go get some fuel, when he go back he started dumping the fuel into the forklift. I happened to walk outside and noticed that he was on the wrong side of the forklift!!! (the fuel tank is on the other side he was dumping fuel into the hydraulic tank) After asking why he didn&#8217;t read the labels on the tanks he mentioned that he had never seen a dipstick on a fuel tank before and thought it was strange. We called the service center and they told us not to run the forklift with fuel in the hydraulic oil it was going to be the next day before we could get the tank drained so we had to drive another forklift from our other site 15 miles away